The unprecedented importance of finance in our societies, as well as its central role in provoking economic crises, has generated an enormous interest in understanding the historical origins and evolution of modern financial systems. Today the U.S. economy is seen as an archetype of a capitalist system in which securities markets play a central role. Moreover, these markets have had a high profile in some of the most dramatic moments in U.S. history, often in the
context of crises. Dividends of Development: Securities Markets in the History of U.S. Capitalism, 1865-1922, explains how U.S. securities markets became central to the
institutional fabric of U.S. capitalism. After the Civil War, these markets had a narrowly circumscribed relationship to the country's real economy, being largely dominated by railroad securities. Moreover, their role in the U.S. financial system was of limited significance given the relatively modest resources that financial institutions committed to investment in, and lending on, corporate securities. That situation was to undergo fundamental change from the Civil War through the end of World
War 1 but the development of U.S. securities markets did not occur as a result of a smooth, or even, linear process. Instead, the book shows that the transformation of U.S.
securities markets occurred through a process that was volatile and time-consuming, unscripted by powerful actors, and driven, above all else, by the dramatic but unstable character of the nation's economic development. These claims about the trajectory, the operation, and the underlying dynamics of the development of U.S. securities markets are brought together in a novel synthesis that portrays the historical evolution of securities markets in the United States as the "dividends" of the
country's distinctive trajectory of economic development.
The unprecedented importance of finance in our societies, as well as its central role in provoking economic crises, has generated an enormous interest in understanding the historical origins and evolution of modern financial systems. Today the U.S. economy is seen as an archetype of a capitalist system in which securities markets play a central role. Moreover, these markets have had a high profile in some of the most dramatic moments in U.S. history, often in the
context of crises. Dividends of Development: Securities Markets in the History of U.S. Capitalism, 1865-1922, explains how U.S. securities markets became central to the
institutional fabric of U.S. capitalism. After the Civil War, these markets had a narrowly circumscribed relationship to the country's real economy, being largely dominated by railroad securities. Moreover, their role in the U.S. financial system was of limited significance given the relatively modest resources that financial institutions committed to investment in, and lending on, corporate securities. That situation was to undergo fundamental change from the Civil War through the end of World
War 1 but the development of U.S. securities markets did not occur as a result of a smooth, or even, linear process. Instead, the book shows that the transformation of U.S.
securities markets occurred through a process that was volatile and time-consuming, unscripted by powerful actors, and driven, above all else, by the dramatic but unstable character of the nation's economic development. These claims about the trajectory, the operation, and the underlying dynamics of the development of U.S. securities markets are brought together in a novel synthesis that portrays the historical evolution of securities markets in the United States as the "dividends" of the
country's distinctive trajectory of economic development.
Introduction
1: Fits and Starts in the History of U.S. Securities Markets,
1866-1922
2: Yankee Doodle Went to London: Anglo-American Breweries & the
London Securities Market, 1888-1892
3: An Inauspicious Beginning: Early U.S. Flirtations with
Industrial Securities, 1889-1897
4: The Truth about the Trusts: Propitious Conditions for U.S.
Markets for Industrials, 1897-1902
5: From Undigested to Indigestible: U.S. Industrials in the Panic
of 1907
6: Wall Street on the Defensive, 1908-1914
7: Too Much Ado About Morgan's Men: The U.S. Securities Markets,
1908-1914
8: The Wages of War, 1914 - 1922
9: Conclusion
Mary A. O'Sullivan is a Professor of Economic History and director
of the Department of History, Economics, and Society at the
University of Geneva. Her research is focused on the history of
industries and enterprises, financial history, and the comparative
history of economic development. She is the author of Contests for
Corporate Control: Corporate Governance and Economic Performance in
the United States and Germany (Oxford University Press, 2000)
and
co-editor of the book, Corporate Governance and Sustainable
Prosperity (Macmillan, 2002) as well as numerous journal articles.
Before joining the University of Geneva, O'Sullivan was an
Associate Professor of
Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
from 2005 to 2010 and Associate Professor of Strategy at INSEAD
(Fontainebleau, France) from 1996 to 2004. She earned her Ph.D. in
business economics at Harvard University, an MBA from Harvard
Business School and a Bachelor of Commerce from University College
Dublin.
Mary O'Sullivan's new book represents an important and highly
persuasive revisionist contribution to economic and financial
history...This is rigorous, theoretically informed history, which
avoids bending facts to fit theories and chooses to 'interpret
history in a forward-looking rather than backward-looking way'
(p.12). Those who wish to contest her arguments will need to match
her diligence in painstakingly revisiting an array of archival and
other original sources, a formidable proposition. For the business
historian, there is much of interest and much to admire in this
book, not only in its findings but also in its approach and fine
demonstration of the historians craft.
*Mark Billings, Business History*
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